By Duncan Kennedy in Los Angeles

1999 has been lift-off for all things Latino, with Puerto Rican heart-throb Ricky Martin leading the assault.

In the United States alone, his smash-hit single Livin' La Vida Loca has sold a million copies.

The album from which it is taken has sold about six million copies.

It is not just in the world of entertainment that the statistics surrounding the Hispanic population are truly staggering.

In the United States there are now about 30 million people of Latin origin.

In just 50 years' time, that figure is expected to triple to 90 million.

Hispanic people will then make up a quarter of the total population of the United States.

Toe-tapping salsa

Within two minutes of arriving in downtown Los Angeles, I had come across a Peruvian pipe band playing a toe-tapping salsa number in one of the parks.

There was also a Mariachis band serenading the customers of a nearby restaurant.

Wherever you go here be prepared to sway and dance to the music.

I hit upon a wonderful wedding chapel off Third street.

The place looked like a shop front - and nothing like a chapel.

There were two speakers blurting out the wedding-procession theme.

Inside, the young couple handed over their $200 and lined up to get married.

It was as simple as that. The chapel hosts up to 18 weddings a day. I met Susanna and Gustava.

They made a charming couple. Gustava in his tight fitting black tuxedo and Susanna, dazzling in her white bridal gown.

It was not St Paul's Cathedral in London, or St Peter's in Rome or Notre Dame in Paris. But they were a young man and woman who wanted to get married.

Gustava and Susanna are typical Latinos. They are young and, crucially, they both have the right to vote.

The number of Hispanic people registered to vote in California has doubled in the past 10 years.

Political power

It is no wonder that presidential hopefuls are taking notice of people like Gustava and Susanna.

The Republican nominee front runner, George W Bush, has already recorded a Spanish language campaign commercial.

One of the leading Democrat contenders, Al Gore, has a Spanish page on his web site.

I also found that it is too simplistic just to talk about "the Hispanic" vote.

It is more complicated than that. There are two views: those who believe that Latinos have arrived in force and those who think that an expanding population alone does not mean political influence.

Eduardo Domingez is a young man of Mexican origin. He runs a local Spanish TV station, and the picture for him, so to speak, is clear.

He believes Hispanics are a force to be reckoned with. It was not just because he was wearing a suit so expensive that it made me feel like a pauper.

It was, he says, because he has the likes of Ford, Coca-Cola and Pepsi all knocking on his door to get their commercials on air.

Martha Escutia, a Democratic Senator from California, is more cautious.

In her wood-panelled office surrounded by pictures of her family she put it this way:

"No, Hispanic people have not 'arrived' in political terms yet."

Instead, she likens them to a sleeping giant that has only yawned, but not yet woken up.

Well, we will know whether the giant has got out of bed in next November's election.